This Labor Day feels gloomy. It’s a celebration of work when there is not enough of it, a day off when too many desperately seek a day on.

America has commemorated two Labor Days since this brutal recession began near the end of George Bush’s presidency in December of 2007. Now the relentless high unemployment, the ever-rising foreclosures, the unremitting wage and benefit take-backs have replaced American optimism and enthusiasm with fear and anger.

Happy Labor Day.

On this holiday, we can rant with Glenn Beck, kick the dog and hate the neighbor lucky enough to retain his job. Or we can do something different. We can join with our neighbors, employed and unemployed, our foreclosed-on children, our elderly parents fearing cuts in their Social Security lifeline and our fellow workers worrying that the furlough ax will strike them next. Together we can organize and mobilize and create a grassroots groundswell that gives government no choice but to respond to our needs, the needs of working people.

We can do what workers did during the Great Depression to provoke change, to create programs like Social Security and achieve recognition of rights like collective bargaining. These changes were sought by groups to benefit groups. In a civil society, people care for one another. And America is such a society – one where people routinely donate blood to aid anonymous strangers, children set up lemonade stands to contribute to Katrina victims and working families find a few bucks for United Way.

The self-righteous Right is all about individuals pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. That proposition – the do-it-all- by-yourself-winner-takes-all philosophy – clearly failed because so many Americans are jobless, homeless and too penniless to afford boots.

Over the past decade, the winner who took all was Wall Street. The banksters gambled on derivatives and other risky financial tomfoolery and won big time. Until they lost. And crashed the economy. After the American taxpayer bailed them out, those wealthy traders returned to making huge profits and bonuses based on perilous schemes.

Still, they believe they haven’t taken enough from working Americans. They’re lobbying to end aid for those who remain unemployed in a recession caused by Wall Street recklessness. And they’re demanding extension of their Bush-given tax breaks. This is the nation’s upper 1 percent, people who earn a million or more each year, the 1 percent that took home 56 percent of all income growth between 1989 and 2007, the year the recession began.

Since 2007, 8.2 million workers have lost jobs. Millions more are underemployed, laboring part-time when they need full-time jobs, or barely squeaking by on slashed wages and benefits. Since the recession began, the unemployment rate nearly doubled, from 5 percent to 9.6 percent, and that does not include those so discouraged that they’ve given up the search for jobs, a decision that is, frankly, understandable when there are only enough openings to re-employ 20 percent of the jobless. Five unemployed workers compete for each job created in this sluggish economy.

And American workers weren’t prepared for this downturn, having already suffered losses in the years before it began. The median income, adjusted for inflation, of working-age households declined by more than $2,000 in the seven years before the recession started.

At the same time, practices like off-shoring jobs and signing regressive international trade deals contributed to the loss of middle class, blue collar jobs. A new report, “The Polarization of Job Opportunities in the U.S. Labor Market,” by the Center for American Progress and The Hamilton Project, says:

“The decline in middle-skill jobs has been detrimental to the earnings and labor force participation rates of workers without a four-year college education, and differentially so for males, who are increasingly concentrated in low-paying service occupations.”

The recession compounded that, the report says:

“Employment losses during the recession have been far more severe in middle-skilled white- and blue-collar jobs than in either high-skill, white-collar jobs or low-skill service occupations.”

What that means is high roller banksters are living large; lawn care workers and waitresses subsist on minimum wage, and working class machinists and steelworkers are disappearing altogether.

The researchers found the U.S. economy is increasingly polarized into high-skill, high-wage jobs and low-skill, low wage jobs. America is losing the middle jobs and with them its great middle class.

No wonder the rising anger in middle America.

But fury doesn’t solve the problem. This Labor Day, we must organize to save ourselves and our neighbors. We must stop America from descending into plutocracy. We must demand support for American manufacturing and middle class jobs. That means terminating tax breaks for corporate outsourcers, ending trade practices that violate agreements and international law and punishing predator countries for currency manipulation that subverts fair trade by artificially lowering the price of products shipped into the U.S. while artificially raising the price of American exports.

We must demand support for American industry, particularly manufacturers of renewable energy sources like solar cells and wind turbines that create good working class jobs, increase America’s energy independence and reduce climate change.

We must insist on policies that support the middle class, including preserving Social Security and Medicare, extending unemployment insurance while joblessness remains high, and enforcing the health care reform law so that every American worker and family can afford and is covered by insurance.

On this Labor Day, we should all have a picnic, invite neighbors, friends and family, and over hot dogs and potato salad, organize to save the American middle class.

Mobilize to end the gloom and restore American optimism.

***

For help: the Union of the Unemployed, the AFL-CIO, USW, Working America. Join the One Nation March for jobs Oct. 2 in Washington, D.C.

About The Author: Leo Gerard is the United Steelworkers International President. Under his leadership, the USW joined with Unite -the biggest union in the UK and Republic of Ireland – to create Workers Uniting, the first global union. He has also helped pass legislation, including the landmark Canadian Westray Bill, making corporations criminally liable when they kill or seriously injure their employees or members of the public.

Older workers are increasingly relying on the labor market—rather than savings—to salvage their retirement prospects. The collapse of the financial sector wiped out an inflation-adjusted $2.8 trillion from 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts, or IRA, between September 2007 and December 2008. But even before that, workers were not saving enough to achieve a secure retirement. Millions of elderly workers have therefore been forced to postpone their retirement plans and depend upon work to provide income in their later years.

But the labor market is a very mixed bag for older workers. Those who currently have a job have been more effective than their younger counterparts at holding onto their positions in the current downturn; the real value of older workers’ median weekly earnings has grown more during the current recession than that of younger workers; and their unemployment rates—despite reaching record highs—are still considerably lower than the national average.

Simon Norwood, a construction worker who hasn't found work in months, poses in a garage apartment belonging to a friend in Little Rock, AK, on August 27, 2009. Workers 55 and older have a higher unemployment rate than anytime since 1948, and those who are unemployed are staying unemployed much longer. SOURCE: AP/Danny Johnston

Yet the news is bleak for older workers without a job. Workers 55 and older have a higher unemployment rate than anytime since 1948, and those who are unemployed are staying unemployed much longer. Given employers’ reluctance to start hiring again, it is likely that older workers will have to continue looking for work for months before finding a job.

Unemployment reaches record levels

Unemployment among older workers has peaked in the current recession. There has been a 134-percent increase in the number of workers over the age of 55 who are looking for work since December 2007, up from 843,000 to 2.0 million last month. In June 2009, the unemployment level of this age demographic peaked at 2.1 million—a number higher than anytime since 1948 when the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking that data. And the oldest workers—those over the age of 65—have also seen their unemployment levels rise, up to 447,000 last month from 197,000 in December 2007—a 127 percent increase.

In comparison, prime-aged workers—workers aged 25 to 54—saw their unemployment levels increase by 118 percent over the last 21 months, rising from 4.2 million to 9.1 million in August.

The age-55-and-older unemployment rate climbed to an all-time high in June 2009 of 7.0 percent, 3.9 percentage points higher than at the start of the current recession. This rate inched down to 6.8 percent last month, but that is still extraordinarily high for older workers. Workers 65 and older saw their unemployment rate reach 7.0 percent in July 2009, up 3.7 percentage points since December 2007, and higher than anytime since 1948. Their unemployment rate also inched down in August to 6.8 percent.

Despite the grim unemployment outlook, older workers have lower unemployment rates than younger workers. The unemployment rate for all workers in August was 9.7 percent, nearly 3 percentage points higher than the rates reached by older workers. Prime-aged workers—those aged 25 to 54—had an unemployment rate of 8.7 percent in August, up 4.7 percentage points since December 2007, and nearly 2 percentage points higher than the rates reached by older workers.

Older workers are working longer and in greater numbers

The aging baby boomer generation is reshaping the demographics of the U.S. population, and changing the face of the workforce. People over 55 account for 31 percent of the civilian population today, up from 23 percent in 1948. It is unsurprising then that older workers make up a greater share of the workforce today than any elderly generation of the past. Their employment rate is higher than any time since 1971, and they appear to be holding on to their jobs longer and more effectively than younger workers.

A Pew Research Center nationwide survey released yesterday found that a paycheck was not the only factor compelling older workers to remain in the labor force; respondents also cited psychological and social benefits as the main reasons for their continued employment. Younger workers, on the other hand, were found to be staying in school longer to earn a higher degree or have become discouraged at their job prospects and are dropping out of the labor market.

The inflow and outflow from the labor market in the last 21 months has shifted the composition of the labor force in favor of elderly workers. The number of workers over the age of 55 in the labor force has grown by 2.1 million since December 2007—an increase of 7.6 percent. The number of prime-aged workers in the labor force has declined by 608,000 over that same time period—a decrease of 0.6 percent. Younger workers have seen the sharpest declines, losing 608,000 labor force participants since December 2007—a decrease of 3.1 percent.

Workers 55 and older account for 18.8 percent of the labor force today—up from 17.6 percent at the start of the current economic recession—and higher than anytime since 1948. Their share of the workforce has increased by 7.1 percent over the last 21 months. In comparison, the share of prime-age workers in the workforce has declined 1.1 percent since the start of the Great Recession. Prime-age workers currently account for 67.3 percent of the workforce, down from 68.0 percent 21 months ago. Younger workers aged 16 to 24—whose share of the workforce has declined by 3.6 percent since December 2007—make up 13.9 percent of the workforce, down 0.5 percentage points from December 2007.

Elderly workers have experienced net gains in employment in recent months, especially when compared to younger workers. Workers 55 and older have gained 938,000 jobs since the start of the Great Recession, while workers between the age of 25 and 54 have lost a total of 5.5 million jobs.

Employment rates for older workers have also reached record levels. The employed share of workers over 55 climbed to 38.0 percent in the current recession, most recently in August 2008. This is a high not seen since 1970. The employment rate for this segment of the population was 37.3 percent last month, only marginally lower. The employed share of workers over 65 climbed to a record 16.5 percent in the current recession, most recently in October 2008. This is also a record not seen since 1970. And the employment rate for workers over 65 was 16.1 percent last month—down 0.4 percentage points from the current recession’s peak.

Older workers have also been relatively effective at holding onto their jobs in the current downturn. The employed share of workers over 55 has only declined 0.4 percentage points since December 2007, compared to a decline of 5.5 percentage points for workers between the ages of 16 and 24, and a decline of 4.2 percentage points for workers between the ages of 25 and 54.

Growth in real earnings

Older workers have experienced greater gains in real earnings value than younger workers in the current downturn, providing them with an additional cushion to endure the crisis. The real median weekly earnings for workers 55 and older have increased by 10.3 percent since 2007, and by 5.2 percent since 2008. Workers 65 and older have seen a 23.7 percent increase in real median weekly earnings since 2007, and an 11.2 percent increase since 2008.

In contrast, workers aged 16 to 24 have seen their real weekly earnings decline in real value by 2.8 percent since 2007, and by 0.9 percent since 2008. Real weekly earnings of prime-aged workers have increased by a modest 1.7 percent since 2007, and by 2.5 percent since 2008.

The Great Recession has decimated the retirement savings of older Americans and placed them in a very precarious position. Working later in life has traditionally been the fall back for those with inadequate retirement savings, but the labor market during the Great Recession isn’t all that great, which makes it a more difficult prospect. Older workers with a job may be doing better than their younger counterparts, but older workers without a job face an unprecedented challenge. Real solutions to this retirement crisis will require getting the labor market back on track and addressing the glaring inadequacies of our current retirement system.

See also:

• The Retirement Crisis in the Labor Market, by Christian Weller

David Madland is Director of the American Work Project at the Center for American Progress and Nayla Kazzi is Research Assistant at the Center for American Progress. For more on this topic, please visit our Economy page.

This article originally appeared in Center for American Progress on September 4, 2009. Re-printed with permission by the author.